6-hour slow-roasted pork shoulder

A proper old-school Sunday roast

6-hour slow-roasted pork shoulder

6-hour slow-roasted pork shoulder

Serves Serves 4
Time Cooks In6 hours 15 minutes plus resting time
DifficultyNot too tricky
Nutrition per serving Plus
  • Calories 749 37%
  • Fat 49.1g 70%
  • Saturates 16.8g 84%
  • Sugars 7.5g 8%
  • Salt 1.2g 20%
  • Protein 66.3g 132%
  • Carbs 11g 4%
  • Fibre 2.7g -
Of an adult's reference intake
Jamie Saves Our Bacon
recipe adapted from

Jamie Saves Our Bacon

By Jamie Oliver
Tap For Method

Ingredients

  • 2 kg higher-welfare pork shoulder , bone-in, skin on
  • 2 red onions
  • 2 carrots
  • 2 sticks of celery
  • 1 bulb of garlic
  • 6-8 fresh bay leaves
  • 600 ml organic vegetable stock
Tap For Method

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Jamie Saves Our Bacon
recipe adapted from

Jamie Saves Our Bacon

By Jamie Oliver
Tap For Ingredients

Method

  1. Remove the pork from the fridge for 1 hour before you want to cook it, to let it come up to room temperature.
  2. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/gas 7.
  3. Place the pork on a clean work surface, skin-side up. Get yourself a small sharp knife and make scores about 1cm apart through the skin into the fat, but not so deep that you cut into the meat. If the joint is tied, try not to cut through the string.
  4. Rub sea salt right into all the scores you’ve just made, pulling the skin apart a little if you need to. Brush any excess salt off the surface then turn it over. Season the underside of the meat with a few pinches of salt and black pepper.
  5. Place the pork, skin-side up, in a roasting tray and roast for 30 minutes, or until the skin has started to puff up and you can see it turning into crackling. At this point, turn the heat down to 170°C/325°F/gas 3, cover the pork snugly with a double layer of tin foil, pop back in the oven and roast for a further 4½ hours.
  6. Meanwhile, halve the onions, carrots and celery, and break the garlic up into cloves (there's no need to peel them).
  7. Remove the pork from the oven, take off the foil, and baste the meat with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully transfer to a board, then skim all but 2 tablespoons of excess fat from the tray into a jar, and pop in the fridge for tasty cooking another day.
  8. Add all the veg, garlic and bay leaves to the tray and stir them into the fat. Place the pork back on top of everything and place back in the oven without the foil to roast for 1 further hour, or until meltingly soft and tender.
  9. Carefully move the meat to a serving dish, cover again with tin foil and leave to rest while you make the gravy. Spoon away any fat in the tray, then add the stock (or replace with water, if you prefer) and place the tray on the hob.
  10. Bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to scrape up all those lovely sticky tasty bits from the bottom of the tray.
  11. When you’ve got a nice, dark gravy, pour it through a sieve into jug using your spoon to really push all the goodness of the veg through the sieve. Season to taste, if needed.
  12. Serve the pork and crackling with the jug of gravy and all the trimmings – a dollop of apple sauce will finish this off perfectly.

Tips

Leaving the bone in adds a bit of extra flavour and having a layer of fat helps to keep the meat nice and moist as it roasts. This isn’t the kind of joint you carve into neat slices. If you’ve cooked it right, it should pull apart into shreds with a couple of forks. If you’re worried about scoring the crackling yourself, ask your butcher to do it for you.

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FAQs

Should I slow cook pork shoulder on low or high?

Set your slow-cooker to low for 6-8 hours for tender, juicy pork shoulder that pulls apart easily. The high setting will boil the meat rather than gently stew it so, while quicker, it won’t be nearly as tasty.

Can you overcook pork shoulder?

It’s not easy, but yes, you can overcook pork shoulder! It becomes tough, chewy and dry when it’s cooked for too long or at too high a temperature.

How do you moisten a pork shoulder?

You’ll need to add some liquid back into it. Take either some apple juice, apple cider or meat stock and reheat the pork adding the liquid bit by bit until it’s juicy and succulent.
Jamie Saves Our Bacon
recipe adapted from

Jamie Saves Our Bacon

By Jamie Oliver